Tag Archives: MGM

The ministry of health is deceiving people by announcing to them that once they are circumcised, they become immune to HIV/AIDS effectively encouraging them to engage in promiscuity. Instead of reducing the risk, circumcision has been tested in other environments to actually be the protagonist of HIV transmission, critics state. One recent randomized controlled trial carried out in South Africa into male-to-female transmission actually demonstrated a 54% higher rate in the group where the men had been circumcised.

Abstinence, being faithful, and the use of condoms is the way forward out of the HIV/AIDS trap; Promoting genital surgery will cost African lives, not save them, argues critics.

On March 3, 2012, the New York Daily Newsreported the death this past September of a two-week-old baby boy, following an ultra-Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual. The report came after the newspaper pressed Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn for information, evidently having heard about the death from other sources. The New York City Medical Examiner’s office is quoted as listing the cause of death as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.”

Because some of my readers may not be aware of the ritual, known as metzizah b’peh, I will describe it. Following the “usual” steps involved in a circumcision (i.e., stroking the baby’s penis to make it erect, stripping the foreskin from the head of the penis, and cutting the foreskin off), in metzizah b’peh the mohel (ritual circumciser) then “removes blood from the wound with his mouth” (this is the news media’s description; in other words, the mohel sucks the baby’s bloody penis). It was this final insult added to injury that caused the death of the poor baby boy in question.

This preliminary study investigates what role early trauma might have in alexithymia acquisition for adults by controlling for male circumcision. Three hundred self-selected men were administered the Toronto Twenty-Item Alexithymia Scale checklist and a personal history questionnaire. The circumcised men had age-adjusted alexithymia scores 19.9 percent higher than the intact men; were 1.57 times more likely to have high alexithymia scores; were 2.30 times less likely to have low alexithymia scores; had higher prevalence of two of the three alex-ithymia factors (difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings); and were 4.53 times more likely to use an erectile dysfunction drug. Alexithymia in this population of adult men is statistically significant for having experienced circumcision trauma and for erectile dysfunction drug use.

“The debate on circumcision of boys will never be silenced, and it is now clear that in this debate, religious groups are not untouched. Among religious leaders, there is therefore the challenge, on pain of alienation from their own supporters, to take the time to look into a transition to alternative initiation rites with no irreversible adverse consequences for the child.

The government, the parliament and human rights organizations like the Children’s Ombudsman, Pharos, Forum, the Johannes Wier Foundation and Amnesty International, have the responsibility to speak out against circumcision of boys as a violation of children’s rights. Such statements of authoritative bodies may release a discussion within religious communities and to doubting parents an important support and backing.

The KNMG calls upon all these parties to assume their responsibilities in the effort to say goodbye to a painful and harmful ritual.”

“There has got to be something very tragic, and very wrong, with a society impaired by its own cultural blinders. It is very disconcerting that while human rights advocates fly half-way around the globe to decry the genital mutilation of girls and women, the very same people display a willful ignorance to the genital mutilation of boys in their own countries. While their cameras faithfully bring back images of girls being restrained as they have part of their genitals forcefully cut off, they somehow fail to capture images of the boys who are enduring the same in the very same countries.

Every so often, we’ll see pictures of the forced genital cutting of boys in the media, however the tone in presentation is different. While the presentation of the images of forced female genital cutting encourage an audience to deplore the actions depicted, the presentation of the images of forced male genital cutting encourage an audience to accept what they see in the scope of "cultural relativism." "Horror and torture" for girls and women, "the preservation of age-old coming-of-age tradition" in boys. Why the sexist double-think?

It is a glaringly obvious inconsistency to defend the forced genital cutting of one sex, but condemn it in the other, yet when advocates of human rights point out this inconsistency, we are often met with hostility. "How dare you compare male and female circumcision," retort some, especially those defending male infant circumcision, "they’re not the same thing!" This is said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if these claims were immediately self-evident.

I must ask, on what are they basing these assertions? Of the people that make these claims, how many of them have actually witnessed a male circumcision, let alone a female one? Can these claims actually be substantiated, or do they expect us to take their word for it at face value? What double-think are they using to condemn the abuse of female children, while defending the abuse of male children?”

“Orthodox Jews argue that prohibiting the circumcision of children would be a restriction on religious freedom. However, the state has regularly restricted religious freedom when it is felt that such practices would be deleterious to minors. The obvious example is the over-riding of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ ban on blood transfusions for their children. The issue with circumcision is not one of life and death*, but it does seem to me that the San Francisco referendum would not ipso facto be unconstitutional.

[…]

Despite having circumcised my two sons, the more I think about the issue, the more likely – were I a resident of San Francisco – I would support the referendum.”

“CONCLUSIONS: Circumcision was associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women, notably orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia and a sense of incomplete sexual needs fulfilment. Thorough examination of these matters in areas where male circumcision is more common is warranted.”

“The Global Survey of Circumcision Harm (GSCH) was launched because the medical community has never investigated the long-term adverse physical, sexual, emotional or psychological consequences of infant/childhood circumcision on the health of adult men. This is due, in part, to many men with such harm not being comfortable enough to speak with others about these issues, or not being given a safe venue in which to document these adverse consequences. Until the medical community investigates these consequences, the internet remains an alternate venue offering these men the comfort level they require to document such harm.

The survey is a grassroots, all-volunteer effort to provide an online self-report and documentation method for any male who considers himself harmed by childhood genital cutting imposed on him without his fully informed consent. It is hoped that documenting such consequences and making the results publicly accessible through our related website (see below) will provide a starting point for dialogue about the long-term adverse consequences of male genital cutting. It is hoped that this harm will be investigated by medical communities and taken seriously by the societies where customs of male childhood genital cutting occur.”